At this point in my life, flying solo and kids all grown up, having a big calendar is not necessary...I just use a planner and it works great for my needs. So this may not apply to everyone. But to all you moms and dads out there trying to stay organized, I think it is absolutely essential!
My daughter uses something very similar to this and I think it is the best $24 you can spend! From my experience the kitchen is the heart of the home and the fridge is the perfect canvas for this setup, assuming your fridge is magnetic of course. If not, there are other command center setups out there.
When I was a single mom and very low on funds, I just made my own calendar with paper and a ruler and it worked perfect, so you can stay perfectly organized without spending any money! I would make an oversize calendar to have lots of space. I love this jumbo dry erase wall calendar too!
Also these acrylic ones seem to be popular. They come in many sizes.
If you are looking for something more sophisticated, Pottery Barn, 1Thrive, and Wayfair have some options. You can check out my Pinterest Board for some more ideas: https://www.pinterest.com/looseendsorganizing/command-center/
Magnetic MEAL Planner Organization
This is a side note, and maybe I will make a separate post about it, but something I found to be one of the biggest challenges as a mom was coming up with meals every night! I love cooking and wanted to make great meals every night which is really not practical. So I settled for making great meals several times a week and then simpler meals sprinkled in, and the occasional fast food on a busy night with activities.
Anyhow, I discovered magnetic printer sheets, so I would type up a list of meals, a mix of new recipes I wanted to try, old favorites like tacos and spaghetti with meatballs, the simple already made (like Trader Joe's Orange Chicken that my kids loved) and the things I would forget about like chicken salad sandwiches or sloppy joes. You print it out, cut them up and then have a "pool" of recipes to choose from for the week/month. It worked perfect on my refrigerator calendar!
I just researched these magnetic dry-erase labels for those of you who don't have a printer, but note the size as these may not work on all calendar set-ups. And you can even just buy this 25 foot roll that you can cut yourself. And these could work on tool boxes, metals shelving and any other magnetic surface making them super versatile!
Love the idea of magnetic recipe cards!!!